Simple sabotage…

Earlier this year the US Government declassified a WWII OSS field manual on sabotage. Now the Simple Sabotage Field Manual is not what you might think. No it’s not a 101 on blowing up bridges, nor is it a cookbook for how to conduct Operation Kutschera, but rather it’s aimed at a lower key sabotage of ordinary working practices inside the organisation. For example using conferences and meetings to strategically delay decision making. Nobody get kills but that new Panzer design with the Porsche turret? Well sorry Reichs Marshall it’ll be buried in design committee until about 1948. Charlie Stross went on to twitter asking for modern updates to the OSS manual, I’m not sure whether that exercise increased or decreased the net sum of human happiness, but hey, it was amusing.

Which got me to thinking, if you read the OSS manual and find that every working day seems like a text book play courtesy of the boys from Prince William Park, then shouldn’t you logically conclude that you are sitting in the middle of a war? If you see folk in your organisation regularly using moves out of the OSS play book they may not be just haplessly incompetent. If nothing else this should make you look at your daily fare of corporate hooey in a new light. So stay frosty people, and remember three times is enemy action.

With a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s in Systems Engineering, Matthew Squair is a principal consultant with Jacobs Australia. His professional practice is the assurance of safety, software and cyber-security, and he writes, teaches and consults on these subjects. He can be contacted at mattsquair@gmail.com